


lost and found

by helloearthlings



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, POV Second Person, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 13:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7575544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloearthlings/pseuds/helloearthlings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin is what home is, what safety is, what a smile is. You don’t know your name, but you know his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lost and found

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I haven't written in second person in ages. I used to do it all the time, if anyone can remember that far back. Anyway, I'm not sure how I feel about this yet, but I'm just grateful I managed to write something today, haha. I hope you like it and thanks for reading!

“Please,” you say, the moment your throat works, when it stops burning, when your entire body stops burning, “please, where’s Merlin? I need to find him.”

You only get pitying looks and pills shoved down your throat as someone says to someone else as if you never asked a question, “He’s lost all cognitive thinking skills.”

“Please,” you catch the eye of one of the men in long, white coats and plead “Do you know where Merlin is?”

“Who’s Merlin?” The man asks you, eyebrows knitted together as he kneels next to the bed you’re lying in, strapped to with no hope of escape.

You shake your head again and again, all you know is his name and that he feels like warmth, not like the cold silver of your bedpan, the metallic sterility of your surroundings, the brusque and dismissive nature of the white coats. Merlin is what home is, what safety is, what a smile is. You don’t know your name, but you know his.  “I don’t know.”

“That’s right,” the man nodded, speaking slowly as if to a child. You’re not a child, you know that much; you shouldn’t be strapped to this bed, you know that, too. If only they would let you see the world, maybe you wouldn’t feel so hopeless. If only they stopped forcing the medicine in your system, maybe you’d be able to think straight. If only you could see Merlin, you might remember who you are. “You don’t know anything. You don’t have any memory. Merlin is just a figment of your imagination. Your brain has been all but destroyed – he cannot be real.”

“But he is,” you tell him, and tell every one of the white coats when they give you meaningless placations about why you’re here and why you cannot leave. “He’s real. He’ll come find me. He always comes and finds me. That’s what he does.”

But the world – the room that is your world – ignores you and shakes its head at you and tells you that you’re nothing now, you’re less than nothing, you’re insane and a liability, you cannot be trusted to see anything beyond your four walls and feel anything but the starchy pillow underneath you and the metallic taste in your mouth.

And then there is a white coat who is different from the other white coats. The others all look the same, severe and frowning and icy, but this one smiles and laughs and you feel warm when he’s there.

You were told to stop asking about Merlin long ago, but that was from the others. This one isn’t the same as the others. The others are blocks whose features swim in and out of your peripheral vision, but you know this one has dark hair and white teeth and long fingers and eyes a color that you cannot name but you know is beautiful.

“What’s the matter?” He asks you as he enters the room, before you can even speak, and no one, not ever, has asked you that. They give you commands, they speak to each other like you’re not there, but they don’t ask you questions. They don’t really care about you.

You feel tears on your cheeks as you ask “Merlin isn’t here. I want Merlin, please, do you know where he is? No one will tell me where he is.”

The man looks down at you with concern and heartbreak, and you feel as if no one has ever seen you as more than a specimen, an experiment, and you feel heartbreak, too. “I was told that you had lost all of your memories.”

“Not him,” you tell the man, not knowing how to voice who Merlin is to him, knowing that even with all of your memories, your brain fully functioning, you wouldn’t be able to articulate Merlin. You just wouldn’t. “I just know him. He’s the only one who can help me.”

“Why do you think that?” The man asks, leaning down to look at you more clearly, head tilted as if considering something, and you notice that his eyes are brighter than they were before, glistening with water like yours are as you try to explain.

“Because it’s what he does, what he always does. I know him,” you insist.

“Would you know him if you saw him?” The man wonders aloud, and you realize that his hand is very close to your own. No one ever touches you unless it’s to restrain you or shove medicine down your throat as you struggle. No one wants to be anywhere near you – except for this man.

You nod vigorously. “I would, I would, please, I have to see him. I have to.”

The man didn’t answer his plea, however; he asked another question. The man liked asking questions, and even though you liked it at first, now you just want him to answer yours. “Why do you think you remember him and nothing else?”

“I…” you stumble, but then something occurs to you. “I died.”

You can’t see the man’s face anymore; he has turned his back to you, but his shaking voice is still present, low and breaking and you don’t know why. “You did.”

“And then I came back, but I don’t remember…I don’t remember anything. Just him. Because…I don’t know,” you suddenly run out of memories, and tears spring to your eyes as you lean back miserably against the uncomfortable pillow keeping you upright. “I think...I hope…does he love me? I think he does. I think I love him. That’s why I remember. We don’t love like normal people love each other.”

“We’re more of the epic conjoined destiny kind of love, aren’t we?” The man asks and you don’t realize what he’s saying until you do. “The kind that transcends the realm of human thought? Cognition? That is greater than the universe itself? The kind that the universe created, but we trumped the universe to become greater than time and space and every world there ever was?”

“It’s you,” you sigh in relief, emotion bubbling up to the surface, threatening to burst. “I knew you’d come.”

The man looks over at you and there are tears in his eyes and a grin on his face and Merlin laughs at you, open-mouthed and joyous. “Arthur…Arthur, of course I did. Now let’s get you out of here. We have a lot to catch up on.”

“I can’t think straight,” you warn him as he starts to undo the bonds strapping you to the bed – with magic, of course, because Merlin and magic go hand in hand, he _is_ magic, magic itself, not because of anything destiny said, because Merlin was right: they were here, they were together, they were greater than destiny. “I can’t be…be the same as I was before.”

“You’re still Arthur,” Merlin tells you, and smile because that _is_ your name. Arthur. Merlin and Arthur. It’s right and it’s good and it’s what you’ve been waiting for. “You’ll remember that eventually. And I’ll always be there to help you, guide you – anything, Arthur, anything for you.”

“I missed you,” you tell him, adrenaline coursing through you as you stand for the first time in what feels like centuries, and he leans forward to wrap his arms around you and presses your foreheads together and this – this is perfect. This is worth centuries.

“Me, too,” he whispers.

“I’m so glad you found me,” you say, and you know that he’s right, that you’ll remember everything someday, but you’ll never forget what this feels like – this moment the world around you is nothing but obscurity. Where all you know is Merlin.

You’ll remember all of the arguments, betrayals, and secrets someday, but all you know today is that Merlin loves you and you love him. And someday when you’re angry or miserable, you’ll remember knowing nothing but that love, and know in your heart that it really is the only thing that truly matters.


End file.
